The House did its job to protect life, and now it’s time for Senate leaders to do theirs! That was the message at a press conference I joined yesterday with Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Joni Ernst (R-IA), and James Lankford (R-OK) as well as other pro-life leaders. The trio of pro-life Republicans announced that they’d just introduced the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (H.R. 36) in the Senate — the bill’s last stop on its way to the White House. As I wrote yesterday, the same legislation sailed through the House 237-189. Two months before he won the White House, President Trump promised the American people that he would sign this law if it came to his desk, saving thousands of unborn children every year from an excruciating and barbaric death. Sen. Graham is now leading the charge to get this legislation through the Senate so the president can fulfill that pledge.

Fifty-four senators voted for the measure the last time around, but pro-lifers will have to work even harder to climb the bill’s biggest hurdle: a 60-vote threshold. In the 1970s, Roe v. Wade legalized abortion on demand, and created a trimester framework for when the state could protect life. Two decades later, the Supreme Court shifted the trimester framework and said the state had a compelling interest in protecting unborn life at “viability,” when it upheld Pennsylvania’s 24-week ban on abortion. However, as Sen. Graham pointed out, the point of viability is shifting with modern science. In other words, our laws are outdated. We now know children as young as five months can survive — and more importantly, suffers through the abortion process.

We know unborn children’s pain receptors are developed at five months, but their brain doesn’t develop the ability to suppress painful stimuli until even later, sometime after 32 weeks. As I said at the press conference, this isn’t rocket science. A baby at five months in utero feels pain. That’s why children who undergo surgery in the womb receive anesthesia. The contrast is inhumane.

Our country is in a scandalous league when it comes to such treatment of the unborn. Only seven countries allow abortion past the 20-week mark. And ours is one of them. If America wants to draw distinctions between itself and rogue nations like North Korea, this would be a good place to start. Call and email both of your senators and urge them to take up and pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act!

Originally published here.

Atheists Won’t Go Easy on Hymn in Band

Past Super Bowl half-time shows have sparked considerable controversy for crossing the line of what should be a family-friendly event. A high school football half-time show is grabbing headlines in Alabama this week — but this time, the complaints are coming from militant secularists upset over Christian instrumental music. Yes, you read that right. According to the Freedom from Religion Foundation, even performing instrumental music to hymns like “Amazing Grace,” “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee,” and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is enough to run afoul of the so-called “separation of religion and government.”

Are these secularists really worried that those watching the marching band might know the words to the hymns and therefore be tempted to have a “religious” thought — or maybe even go so far as to sing the words out loud? No doubt the Freedom from Religion Foundation thinks such a scenario trumps all other half time show controversies — and therefore must be stopped!

Thankfully, the school’s principal told Fox News’s Todd Starnes that the band will keep marching on. “We are going to keep the music as is,” Principal Brent Shaw told Todd. “We have evaluated our props to see if we need to adjust those, but we are not changing the music.” Thank you Mr. Shaw for not bowing to political correctness and allowing the band to keep marching. The principal’s words do prompt one “religious” thought for me — actually reminding me of an old hymn: “Onward Christian Soldiers.” The Freedom from Religion Foundation needn’t worry. I’m only humming it to myself.

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.